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by Oddly Inspired
Summary: "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" Number Seven: Physics.
1. L'Ennui

Hello hello.  
Remember all those obnoxious plot seeds that I was talking about? You know, the ones that never grow past that part of their life?  
This is my home for them.  
(P.S. - "L'ennui" means roughly "the annoyance" or "the bothersome thing" in French.

* * *

**L'ennui.**

* * *

She hated the sunrise. When she was younger, she loved it. She woke up every morning to watch the magnificent arc it made as it stretched across the sky, reminding that she had a whole more day to live, to enjoy living, to **be** alive.

She loved the sunset. When she was younger, she hated it. She made sure to stay away from any windows and planted herself firmly in her room, curtains drawn, often allowing herself to drift to sleep before the sun had even settled. She hated to see the day end, hated the reminder that time in life is limited, hated that, someday, there wouldn't be anymore sunrises or the days that followed.

She slept in now, not stirring from her bed until late in the morning, when she was sure the sun was fully up, usually shining through her window, her curtains flung open from when she had fallen asleep watching the sunset.

He'd always annoyed her, kind of like the sunset, when she was younger. He loved the sunset. It was like he was okay with the fact that he had nothing to look forward to with the beginning of every new day.

It was like they'd switched roles when…

She shivered and drew her thick covers around her shoulders and across her chest. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she sighed and bit back an ironic, dry laugh. She spared a quick glance at the clock—eleven thirty, it informed her brightly, every day—closed her eyes, and fell back into her pillows.

They still reeked of him.

She should wash them, she knows, but she can't bring herself to part with that scent, disgusting as it is. She changes the cases, but never cleans her actual pillows—the scent has long since been absorbed into the soft cotton inside, and she is afraid to rinse it out. She likes it, that sickly sweet smell of oil and cigarette and sweat, though she isn't sure why. She forced herself to roll over, sitting up, this time dropping the covers. They fall to her knees, pale and scarred here and there, but smooth, as she watches, and for some reason that she can never explain, the action reminds her of him.

Stretching, she finally put her feet onto the floor, throwing the blankets off, and shivered at the cold. God, she hated Callisto.

* * *

He loved the sunrise. If anyone had asked him just a year ago, he would have stated the opposite. He'd hated it back then, it only served as an exquisitely painful reminder that he was, somehow, still alive, and that he had no reason to be so. It wasn't that he was particularly suicidal; he just no longer saw the point in living when everything was gone anyway. It was a certain kind of depression, the kind where one is perfectly aware of the problems and the solution, but is unable or, indeed, unwilling to do anything about it.

He hated, now, to see the sunset. After dying he became acutely aware of what it meant to live, and he abhorred the day's end for that very reason—life seemed to pause at night, when everyone went to sleep. He was tired of putting his life on hold in respect for the few hours of darkness, because a few hours might as well be a lifetime. He'd never realized how much time he wasted sleeping until he began to stay up.

Sometimes he wondered what they were doing now, without him around. Were they still all together? What happened?

But he couldn't bring himself to go back.

* * *

She fnally ileft a year after he did. She wanted to get on with her life. She wanted to get away. She wanted to forget about all of it.

She couldn't.

She rented a shitty apartment in a shitty neighborhood in a shitty city on some shitty moon. Not even a real planet, just a moon. It was cheaper. She got a job at a bar, a topless place, but she was just a bartender. Jet didn't believe her, but it was the truth. She stayed fully clothed all night as she watched the men watching the other girls lose theirs. She didn't talk to the dancers, they reminded her too much of her. But she was younger then.

She's so much older than that now.

* * *

He wasn't sure why he'd come here, of all places. It was a dive, he'd gotten used to more upscale establishments. He was getting soft, he thought, and he walked in. He saw the pretty girls dancing from the window, that was it. Pretty girls dancing and the promise of "A GOOD TIME!" that was stamped on the sign.

But he could see that the girls were hardly alive at all. They all had eyes that looked around the room without seeing anything at all. Like he did when he was younger. When he was stupid.

He could admit that now without feeling stupid. He'd wasted too much time feeling sorry for himself. Wasted too much time on her. But he wasn't doing that anymore. He moved on. He was alive now.

He saw someone who looked like someone he might now across the room. It was like they were a million miles away. But it was tunnel-vision, almost, and his feet dragged him up to the bar against his will.

"Bartender. I'd like a whiskey, please."

Oh, he was casual, to be sure.

* * *

She almost dropped a glass when she saw him but she caught herself and smirked instead. No use letting 'em see you sweat, Poker Alice.

"Coming right up, sir." He had a new suit, that was the first thing she noticed. A nice one, instead of that ugly blue rumpled one he always wore back then. Something like she vaguely remembered her daddy wearing when he came home from work and she sat on his feet, gripping his leg, and he walked with her.

No, she didn't really recognize this man. He had scars on his hand and a few smaller ones on his face. She was surprised to see that he didn't have two fake eyes now, instead of one, and she tells him so as she pours his whiskey into a glass.

He raises an eyebrow and drinks it one gulp, but doesn't answer. She guesses that there really wasn't much to say to that, after all. She remarks on his new suit, he says he got a damn lucrative offer and he took it, because he's always been a man of opportunity.

Doing what, she asks, leading another syndicate?

No, he answers and for once he sounds serious. Bringing them down.

She leaves when he does and she knows that she'll be in trouble for not timing out and leaving early without asking but she thinks that she doesn't really care.

It was all such an annoyance anyway.


	2. Twisted

**Twisted**.

* * *

"You're a swine."

Spike blinked and dropped his fork, cursing at the loss of food. "Excuse me?" he choked.

"You're a swine," she said again, snapping shut her magazine and exiting the room in a huff.

Spike stared after her, neither believing nor disbelieving; eyes wide, brow furrowed, mouth twisting into a scowl. He sat still as Ed danced around him and Ein chased her, barking with all his might. "I live in a goddamn zoo," he muttered. "Even the women behave like animals.

He walked slowly to Faye's room, stopping outside the door. He couldn't bring himself to knock.


	3. Precocious

Thank you for the few reviews I've gotten. This isn't exactly a vivacious section of the site, is it?

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**Precocious**.

She'd always been a perceptive child. The people she shared the ship with didn't seem to notice, but then they never really noticed anything. She found, over time, that she saw things about them that they probably didn't know about themselves.

Like Spike-person, and how when he got really frustrated he dug his hand into his hair and tugged on a chunk. Or how his knuckles got really white because he gripped so hard when he made a fist. Or how much he walked on eggshells around everybody even though he pretended that he didn't care. But she knew better. She could tell that Spike-person cared a lot about all of them.  
When he thought no one was looking or that no one would notice, he was really nice. He covered her up with a blanket once when he thought she was asleep. She didn't want to ruin his niceness so she pretended to still be asleep even when he patted her softly on the head and rubbed Ein's tummy.  
Still, even though she knew all that, she had a hard time figuring him out. When he faced the world with that blank face and apathetic voice even she couldn't tell what he was really thinking.

Captain Jet-person was easier to figure out. Out of all the people with her on the ship, she thought she liked Jet the most. He was nice all the time, at least to her. And even when he was being mean to Spike-person or Faye-Faye he was nice. She thought it was funny how when he was nervous he ran his fake hand over his bald head. No wonder he doesn't have any hair left; that's what she thought the first thousand times he did it.  
She liked how Captain Jet-person always cooked for them and did their laundry and their dishes and their mechanical work. No one ever told him but he was a pretty good cook. She thinks sometimes that he would have been a good househusband if that lady had married him.  
Her favorite thing about him was how he would pretend to be really mad at Spike or Faye-Faye and then smile when they fought back. She realized that he was just a lonely guy, after all, and he would never do anything to drive either of them away no matter how much any of them complained.

Faye-Faye was complicated. She could admit that she didn't know much about her, but she figured that it was because Faye had kind of an identity crisis. Faye-Faye didn't know who Faye-Faye was, so how could she? But she could tell that Faye really cared for everyone on the ship very deeply. Even when Faye ran away, she knew that Faye wanted them to follow. She was testing them—and just to make sure, she took their money and supplies.  
She liked how Faye-Faye didn't stand for any bullshit from anyone. She thought Faye was really a strong person, since she had been through so much. She didn't think that she could be as strong as Faye, but she wanted to try sometimes. She liked how Fay hummed to herself whenever she was alone or when she was playing with her cards. She liked how Faye knew when to be tough and when to be gentle.  
She thought that Faye-Faye would make a really good mother, but she wasn't really sure because she didn't have anything to compare. Still, she couldn't help but think that if she ever missed having a mother-person than she would want Faye to be her new one. And maybe Spike-person could be her dad and Captain Jet-person could be the crazy uncle.

She sits here and thinks all that as she types away, playing in her tomato ocean of fishes and eels and bad guys and good guys and regular guys and zeros and ones. She's busy busy busy, always always always busy but she likes it because she has too much energy to do nothing.

She thinks that the Bebop-Bebop is the best place in the whole universe with her and Ein and all the crazy people inside.


	4. Mismatched

**Mismatched.**

"Why?"

She waited as the word rang hollowly in the air around them, thinking vaguely how the hollowness in her voice matched the hollowness of his head, something she ordinarily would have found hilarious. He slid out from under the Swordfish, grease smudges on his face, and eyed her warily. He had eyes a girl could get lost in, she thought, if she would just let herself get past the stupid mismatched coloring.

"What?"

"Why would you go to die?" Spike looked at her a while before jumping into the cockpit and leaving her behind without saying a single word.

* * *

ehh... it's not my best.


	5. Resilience

**Resilience.**

If the decision had ever been hers to make at all, she would have chosen to stay in that strange cryogenic sleep forever. At least then she wouldn't have to deal with any of _this_ shit. She would never have been involved in this mess at all. She would never have had to experience the sensation of someone else's warm blood on her hands or using sex for personal gain. She'd just be sleeping, forever, and she was okay with that.  
Sleeping, at least, was something she could handle.

She wouldn't have to be so damn tough all the time.

* * *


	6. Sharp

**Sharp.**

"It's not really my name, you know."

Faye, unsure what brought about this sudden confession, looked up from her magazine at the mummy lying across from her. "What are you talking about?"

"You asked me once what kind of name Spike is. It's not."

She stared at him for a minute, slightly shocked, before deciding to use his candid mood to her advantage. "Well, what is it then?"

He pulled himself up into a sitting position, and the action looked so painful that Faye found herself holding back a cringe. He seemed unphased by the pain, but laid his head on the back of the sofa and allowed his body to sink into the dent that he had made over the years. He didn't look like he minded the pain much, but he did look exhausted. "Ben," he said simply. "After my father—he was always Benny. Annie renamed me, I guess, when she took me in."

When Faye didn't say anything, he continued. "After my parents died I wandered around for a bit—then Annie caught me stealing a donut from her store. She said my name didn't suit me, and started calling me Spike instead. I guess it was just because I was so skinny. I had lots of sharp points on me back then."

Faye scoffed. "You still do, lunkhead. Have you ever seen your elbows?"

The mummy closed his eyes and settled further back into the couch, the ghost of a smile on his face. "At least Spike Speigel doesn't sound as corny as Faye Valentine… I mean, seriously?"

"That's not my name."

"Didn't think so. No one is actually named Valentine. That's horrible."

Neither spoke for a long while. Spike had begun to drift back to sleep when he heard her speak, so softly he had to strain to hear. "It's Faye Kennedy."

He stared at her, slightly puzzled. "But… you're Asian, aren't you?"

"My mother was Chinese. My father was an American. From Massachusetts. Apparently, he was a pretty influential guy. He was in politics. From what I've remembered, he was the one who secured government funding for the Gate Corporation… and that's why…"

"You don't need to explain it to me." He reached over and patted her knee. "I'm a sharp guy."

"Maybe _that's_ why she called you Spike," Faye scoffed.

* * *

I think I might be done with these.  
Probably not.

**Review, s'il-vous plait.**


	7. Physics

**Physics.**

* * *

"What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"

"Why are you speaking in riddles?"

"Humor me, Romani. What do you think happens?"

"Nothing. I suppose physics and you want an explosion, but I think that nothing happens."

"Why?"

"Because, the two are absolutes that must be mutually exclusive. By definition, they can't exist together."

"Say they did."

"…Then I would say that either the unstoppable learns to stop, or the immovable learns to move."

"In that case… which of us will be the first to adapt?"

"Oh, Gaujo. The very fact that you're asking means you already have."


End file.
